Current project: Sci-fi rules for D&D 4th Edition, Writing

Archive for October, 2010

Ever wish you could buy or find something that didn’t exist? Something that would just make your life a whole lot easier, but nobody’s thought to make something like it yet? I get those all the time. As I get older, I discover that many of those wishes are also felt by other people, and those holes are slowly filled in, but there’s always something more to wish for.

Yesterday I found myself wishing I had some way to tell my phone to switch on silent mode at a certain time and then switch it back off again after a certain period of time. Wouldn’t that be convenient? You could program in your entire week’s activities (church 1-4, work 8-5, movie 7-9, whatever) during which your phone wouldn’t bother other people if somebody happened to call you at an inconvenient time, but then it would turn itself right back on once you were available. No more missing that dinner invite from grandma because you didn’t think to check whether your phone was on after work.

What about you? What do you need in your life that hasn’t been invented yet?

Even though I haven’t blogged in a while, I’m still around. I just haven’t done anything truly blogworthy in a while. I’m not running any campaigns or actively working on any projects…at least, not until this morning. My shiny brand-new (ok so it’s been sitting on the back-burner for a while, and just barely became presentable) project is called Building a Star System, and is a newly-published lens on Squidoo. It’s a tool to help people build planetary system models for fictional solar systems.

Now before you get all excited, it’s not a fancy 3D model generator, or anything like that. Rather, it’s a series of charts and dice rolls that will get you off the ground if you find yourself suddenly in need of a random star system. It can also be used to fine-tune an existing system you’re just not satisfied with, and eventually it will assist you in fleshing out your worlds as well. Currently it can do everything from choosing a star type to determining how many moons your planets have. It’s a great starting point, and there’s lots more to come.

I also did a little updating of some other lenses, particularly my most popular lens, How to Get Rid of a Kink in Your Neck. I’m amazed at the traffic it’s pulled in so far – it always comes up on the first page of google search, too. If I could post regularly, maybe I’d pull traffic like that to the blog again too…